I'm sorry -- those who made a big deal out of Rachel Ray's scarf in a Dunkin Donuts commercial were simply nutty.

A few months after doughnuts became a presidential campaign issue, they stood at the center of a storm created by right-leaning bloggers. This was a story about “donuts and dumb celebrities” who were “mainstreaming terrorism” to make a buck, asserted Little Green Footballs and Michele Malkin. And Atlas Shrugs revised a bell-ringing catchphrase thusly: “TIME TO MAKE THE JIHAD!”

Suddenly, Dunkin’ Donuts was accused of promoting terrorism, thanks to the wardrobe choices of Rachael Ray, its celebrity spokesman, during an online advertisement. According to the bloggers, she had decided to embrace “hate couture” by wearing a keffiyeh, a scarf popular in the Arab world and preferred by Yasir Arafat and other Palestinian militants during their rise in the West Bank and Gaza.

“The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,” Michele Malkin wrote in her nationally syndicated column. “The Keffiyeh Kerfuffle,” as she called it, might warrant a boycott. Other bloggers agreed.

On Tuesday, Dunkin’ Donuts announced that it was dropping the advertisement. But they also made clear that this was all a big misunderstanding. “Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design,” the company said in a statement, according to The Boston Globe. “Absolutely no symbolism was intended.”

Moreover, Rachael Ray’s role was minimized — the controversial scarf “was selected by her stylist.”

The upshot is that the scarf probably wasn't a keffiyeh. This was a tempest in a teapot, fueled by several folks who I like, respect, and in at least one case have a good personal relationship with via email. It was simply silly, in my opinion.

But what it does do is show the power of the blogosphere -- and the potential power of those of us on the right if we embrace efforts to harness that power in the way that the left has done.

Posted by: Greg at 10:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 348 words, total size 3 kb.